Many homes in the predominantly Kurdish mountainous area are made of mud bricks and are vulnerable in quakes as large as Sunday’s.

“We need shelter,” a man in Sarpol-e Zahab told state TV. “Where is the aid? Where is the help?”

One aid agency said 70,000 people needed shelter after the quake, and there were reports that thousands of people were facing a second night in the cold as dusk fell.

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The UN said it was “ready to assist if required” in a statement from a spokesman for the secretary-general.

Iranian officials said 413 people had died in the country. Some soldiers and border guards were among the dead, the Iranian army’s commander-in-chief told the state news channel IRINN.

In Iraq nine people died, a Red Crescent spokesman told the BBC. A UN office in the country said more than 500 people were injured there, and the earthquake was felt in Irbil, Sulaimaniya, Kirkuk and Basra as well as the capital, Baghdad. Landslides have made it harder for rescuers to reach those affected in rural areas, and there are fears a dam could burst after it was damaged by the earthquake. People living nearby have reportedly been asked to leave.

The quake hit at 21:18 local time (18:18 GMT) about 30km (19 miles) south of Darbandikhan, near the north-eastern border with Iran, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.

More than 1.8 million people live within 100km of the epicenter, the UN estimates.

The earthquake struck at a relatively shallow depth of 23.2 km, and tremors were felt in Turkey, Israel and Kuwait.

In 2003, a 6.6-magnitude quake destroyed the historic city of Bam in south-east Iran, killing 26,000 people.

Sunday’s quake is the deadliest to hit Iran since 2012. But it is only the sixth earthquake of magnitude-7.0 or more in 2017 – there were 16 strong quakes last year and 19 the year before.